Sunday, May 23, 2004

You Learn Something New Everyday

It was pronounced publicly in the first issue of the campus newspaper, the University of Chicago Weekly, which came out the summer before the University opened: 'By mutual agreement between all the faculty and officers of the University now on hand, the uniform appellation of 'Mr.' has been adopted in mutual intercourse, thus doing away with all doubts and mistakes as to the proper title of any man connected with the institution.' This custom is also a form of, well, snobbery: since everyone around has a doctoral degree, it's not worth making a fuss over.

Do the undergrads follow this rule? "Professor" is definitely the term of choice at the law school, but then most of us came from other institutions.